This was my first ever genmaicha, and I appreciate Bird Pick sending this sample in with my order. That said, I must admit that the aroma of the steeped tea was not appealing to me. It smelled like someone had spilled food on a burner and then cooked something without wiping the burner off first. The taste was essentially the same to me. To all the genmaicha lovers out there, I apologize. Perhaps I shall acquire a taste for it, if anyone can ever make me try it again. Meanwhile, I will switch back to Sunday morning tea that we enjoy! This is probably great genmaicha, and it just isn’t my bag!

I hope you only steeped it about 45 seconds.I just had it for the first time and tried it straight but my granddaughters like it sweet. Reminds them of sweet rice crackers from the Asian market that are really good!

Oops. There were no directions on the pouch so I steeped it like any green – three minutes. There was just the one bag and I steeped it twice so I doubt I could get a good idea of what it was supposed to taste like.

3 minutes is waaay too long for a Japanese green tea. I find that 30-45 seconds is pretty good and I never try to go more than a minute, at least for the first steeping. If you have enough left give it another try with a much shorter steeping.

It’s good we can help each other along isn’t it! I know I can count on you guys to tell me what to do when I try a new tea type and fumble around with the timing. I hate buying a tea with no instructions. Especially blends…you have no idea how much of what is in them so how long do you steep and how much do you use? With straight tea it’s easier to look up at least.

I love that we help each other! I don’t usually mind getting a tea without instructions because I hardly listen to them anyway! I do dislike getting blended tea without ingredients though. With blends I typically try to find it on here and see how others make it, if I can’t do that I err on the side of caution and treat them with a lower temp like 175 and less than 3 minutes steep time.

By the way…my daughter homeschools too…has 8 kids right now….7months to 18 years. 3 bio, 3 adopted, 2 foster…one little guy is bipolar and keeping mommy up at night…she needs more than tea right now! NAPS! Appreciate your homeschooling efforts! Have a good week!

Thanks, Bonnie! Your daughter sounds amazing! After May I will only have one child left in my little school! :) I may need to start pestering my oldest daughter to hurry up and get married and get me some grands!

As the guy who has let his parents down by refusing to “produce grand kids” I’m staying out of that part of the conversation, but I would like to weigh in on the tea steeping conversation.

There are very few teas in this world that are so particular they need their own, specific instructions. The broad guidelines for white, yellow, Chinese green, Japanese green, Indian black tea, Darjeeling, oolong, Chinese black, shu pu-erh, sheng pu-erh… the broad guidlines are pretty universal and will almost always get you a “good enough” cup with any leaf. Fine tuning of those guidelines for a given leaf has more to do with getting the best possible out of that leaf than being some kind of requirement to get a cup that’s drinkable.

3 minutes is a long time for any tea, even if you’re doing Western style steeping. And that being said, I would only recommend Western steeping for a few types of tea: black, shu pu-erh, oolong (but only the dark ones, not the green or floral ones) and Darjeeling.

Really, everything else wants to be steeped the traditional Chinese or Japanese way, which means lots of leaf to water ratio and short, multiple steeps.

The good news is, you get a lot more cups of tea for your money doing it the traditional way than the Western way — which is counter intuitive at first because you use so much more leaf and produce smaller pots. But I’m currently on my 8th steeping of this morning’s cup and you’ll never get anything like that doing Western style.

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I hope you only steeped it about 45 seconds.I just had it for the first time and tried it straight but my granddaughters like it sweet. Reminds them of sweet rice crackers from the Asian market that are really good!

Oops. There were no directions on the pouch so I steeped it like any green – three minutes. There was just the one bag and I steeped it twice so I doubt I could get a good idea of what it was supposed to taste like.

3 minutes is waaay too long for a Japanese green tea. I find that 30-45 seconds is pretty good and I never try to go more than a minute, at least for the first steeping. If you have enough left give it another try with a much shorter steeping.

It’s good we can help each other along isn’t it! I know I can count on you guys to tell me what to do when I try a new tea type and fumble around with the timing. I hate buying a tea with no instructions. Especially blends…you have no idea how much of what is in them so how long do you steep and how much do you use? With straight tea it’s easier to look up at least.

I love that we help each other! I don’t usually mind getting a tea without instructions because I hardly listen to them anyway! I do dislike getting blended tea without ingredients though. With blends I typically try to find it on here and see how others make it, if I can’t do that I err on the side of caution and treat them with a lower temp like 175 and less than 3 minutes steep time.

By the way…my daughter homeschools too…has 8 kids right now….7months to 18 years. 3 bio, 3 adopted, 2 foster…one little guy is bipolar and keeping mommy up at night…she needs more than tea right now! NAPS! Appreciate your homeschooling efforts! Have a good week!

Thanks, Bonnie! Your daughter sounds amazing! After May I will only have one child left in my little school! :) I may need to start pestering my oldest daughter to hurry up and get married and get me some grands!

As the guy who has let his parents down by refusing to “produce grand kids” I’m staying out of that part of the conversation, but I would like to weigh in on the tea steeping conversation.

There are very few teas in this world that are so particular they need their own, specific instructions. The broad guidelines for white, yellow, Chinese green, Japanese green, Indian black tea, Darjeeling, oolong, Chinese black, shu pu-erh, sheng pu-erh… the broad guidlines are pretty universal and will almost always get you a “good enough” cup with any leaf. Fine tuning of those guidelines for a given leaf has more to do with getting the best possible out of that leaf than being some kind of requirement to get a cup that’s drinkable.

3 minutes is a long time for any tea, even if you’re doing Western style steeping. And that being said, I would only recommend Western steeping for a few types of tea: black, shu pu-erh, oolong (but only the dark ones, not the green or floral ones) and Darjeeling.

Really, everything else wants to be steeped the traditional Chinese or Japanese way, which means lots of leaf to water ratio and short, multiple steeps.

The good news is, you get a lot more cups of tea for your money doing it the traditional way than the Western way — which is counter intuitive at first because you use so much more leaf and produce smaller pots. But I’m currently on my 8th steeping of this morning’s cup and you’ll never get anything like that doing Western style.

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I am a music teacher and homeschooling mom who started drinking loose leaf tea about five years ago! My daughters and I have tea every day, and we are frequently joined by my students or friends for “tea time.” Now my hubby joins us, too. His tastes have evolved from Tetley with milk and sugar to mostly unadorned greens and oolongs.

We have learned so much history, geography, and culture in this journey.